Electronic devices, such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDA's), often contain firmware and application software that are either provided by the manufacturers of the electronic devices, by telecommunication carriers, or by third parties. Electronic devices, such as GSM phones, often contain a SIM card reader that is employed to read information on SIM cards that are inserted by end users. At least one function of SIM cards is to provide a personal identity for a user regardless of the phone actually in use. Quite often, SIM cards are used to specify the identification of the end user such that any device into which the SIM card is inserted assumes the identity provided by the SIM card. The firmware and application software on such electronic devices often employ information contained in a SIM card to access, over the telecommunications network, services offered by service providers.
If an electronic device such as, for example, a mobile handset, contains operating system and applications software that is updateable, support for the download of one or more update packages comprising information used for updating such software is necessary. It is often difficult, however, to communicate information regarding the location of such update packages to a firmware component, such as an update agent, that needs to access and apply such updates. Update agents that operate at a level below the operating system, closer to the device hardware, may not have access to file system features of the operating system. In addition, the update agents may not have access to other facilities that would typically be available to applications supported by an underlying operating system.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.